Crystalizing some principles:
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@datarama @futurebird Yes! I have some old (maybe 25 years old) Billy bookshelves that are so strong I could knock out a rhino with them. And I bought a Kallax the other day that an ant could lift up and carry off.
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There is a furniture shop in the Bronx that has always baffled me.
But, recently? I had a revelation.
I was baffled because the stuff in their window is so showy and colorful. It’s just not what I’ve been taught to think of as “good design.”
But m, then, I stepped back and considered their prices, the build quality of the furniture— and in that light it’s not that different than IKEA.
In terms of price or functionality or materials.
It just has a very different design agenda.


@futurebird
This looks like what rooms often looked like in San Francisco in my 20s (30 yrs ago). Furniture and decoration then was the best stuff my friends could find on street corners and in Goodwill stores.
And painting our apartments interesting colors was a relatively cheap way to make spaces our own. -
@futurebird
This looks like what rooms often looked like in San Francisco in my 20s (30 yrs ago). Furniture and decoration then was the best stuff my friends could find on street corners and in Goodwill stores.
And painting our apartments interesting colors was a relatively cheap way to make spaces our own.I remember wanting things like that from the thrift shop by my mom said they were “immoral.” Like if you had a velvet couch you might end up living a life with too much drinking and fast women.
And it has only hit me now how *weird* that is.
Just this notion that not plain furniture will corrupt your soul: an unexamined “truth” that on closer inspection makes no sense.